{"id":1367,"date":"2010-02-05T04:30:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T12:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2010-02-04T14:58:17","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T22:58:17","slug":"the-role-of-nursing-theorists-in-nursing-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/?p=1367","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Nursing Theorists in Nursing Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cheryl Bartel, MLIS; MSN-Entry student, Western University of the Health Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

Notes on Nursing School<\/strong>
\nIf you haven\u2019t seen me around recently, it\u2019s because I am keeping very busy at nursing school.\u00a0 Yes, after many years as a librarian to nurses, I have switched sides and am in the process of getting an entry-level Master of Science in Nursing at Western University of the Health Sciences<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 In school, I have learned many things that I wish I had a better understanding of in my previous life as a nursing librarian.\u00a0 I will be sharing these new ideas as a part of a regular column.\u00a0 I would love to get your feedback on whether you have used any of these ideas in helping your nurses and nursing students in the past, and how that worked.<\/p>\n

This posting is going to cover the role of nursing theorists in nursing research, and future posts will cover topics like making sense of nursing degrees and the role of evidence-based practice in nursing.\u00a0 If you work with nurses and\/or nursing students and have a question you would like to see covered, just let me know!\u00a0 My new \u201cofficial\u201d e-mail address is cbartel@westernu.edu.<\/p>\n

Nursing Theory<\/strong>
\nNursing is a little different from most health-care professions in that it is theory based.\u00a0 Our first nursing theorist was (who else?) Florence Nightingale.\u00a0 Nightingale used theory to explain what is and is not nursing, and this is a tradition that continues in nursing to this day.\u00a0 The scope of practice for nursing is so large (imagine the difference between a school nurse, a mental health nurse and an ICU nurse) that theory is necessary to provide a framework for understanding nursing.<\/p>\n

Nursing theory ranges from grand theories (such as Orem\u2019s Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory) through middle range theories (such as Ray\u2019s Theory of Bureaucratic Caring) to practice theory.\u00a0 Nursing practice theory is at the level that can be empirically tested, and typically comes from the daily practice of nursing.
\n
\nWhat This Means for Literature Searching<\/strong>
\nThere are three different kinds of nursing literature that deal with nursing theory that all have their own uses:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Summary books about a variety of theories<\/li>\n
  2. Articles or books about a particular theory<\/li>\n
  3. Research articles that are based on a theory or theories.\u00a0 This is one area where books are often as useful as articles in identifying the best information.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Summary books (like the one listed at the end of this post) are good for researchers who are trying to identify a relevant theory for a proposed research topic or for students who are doing the same thing for a project.\u00a0 They give relatively brief interpretations of a variety of theories, often written by someone other than the original author.\u00a0 These are more useful for identification of theories and comparison of a variety of theories than for in-depth information on a specific theory.\u00a0 Like anything else, when you compare an original theory with someone else\u2019s interpretation, you may or may not agree.\u00a0 For any serious work it is best to go to the original theory.<\/p>\n

    Theorists historically publish their theories in either article or book format, although with the advent of the internet, this may eventually change.\u00a0 Often theories develop over time, and so you may find a number of iterations.\u00a0 Unless you are studying the evolution of a theory, it is typically best to go with the most recent version.\u00a0 If a theory is controversial, you may also find articles by others about the theory.<\/p>\n

    Many research articles also include a discussion of the theory used as a basis for the study design and interpretation.\u00a0 A brief summary of the theory and how it is relevant to the research is typically included at the beginning of the article.\u00a0 CINAHL often indexes the nursing theories included as a part of the article.\u00a0 These can be found under \u201cNursing Theory,\u201d and a number of theories even have their own headings.\u00a0 This is the best strategy if someone is looking for research based on a particular theory.<\/p>\n

    Parker, M. E. (Ed.), (2006). Nursing Theories & Nursing Practice. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company.
    \n
    \nPosted 2\/5\/10<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Cheryl Bartel, MLIS; MSN-Entry student, Western University of the Health Sciences Notes on Nursing School If you haven\u2019t seen me around recently, it\u2019s because I am keeping very busy at nursing school.\u00a0 Yes, after many years as a librarian to nurses, I have switched sides and am in the process of getting an entry-level […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mlgsca.mlanet.org\/newsletter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}